Leisure port ‘bombshell’
THE leader of plans to use inert waste to extend St Peter Port harbour, Deputy Neil Inder, has called moves to amend his requete ‘a bit of a bombshell’.
Deputies Peter Ferbrache and Charles Parkinson instead want to trigger a widescale £1.45m. review of the use of St Peter Port and St Sampson’s harbours.
‘We expected the States’ Trading Supervisory Board to amend for more and more money for greater consideration but we didn’t expect proposition one,’ said Deputy Inder. ‘This asks the States to decide, largely out of the blue, to determine that St Peter Port harbour would become a “leisure port”.’
Deputy Inder believes that this proposition goes a lot further than the proposed requete, which is focused on a strategic use of inert waste at St Peter Port.
‘Normally, such a significant change would come via a policy letter, not in the last line of an amendment to a requete that asks to direct inert waste to a more strategic use.’
Deputy Inder met with STSB, other States members and officers to discuss the amendment, concluding that the suggestion that St Peter Port harbour become a leisure port predetermined the amendment’s £800,000 request to ‘carry out a detailed analysis of the future harbour requirements’.
Viewed as an ‘out of the box solution’, Deputy Inder says that the requerants have proposed a strategic solution to secure the future of the harbour for generations to come.
‘We are told time and time again that the States does nothing strategic. Well, here is the opportunity. Develop an extended working area for the harbour, add greater defences to protect the Victorian masterpiece, develop a jetty that is of a size that reflects the way shipping is going, and by doing that of course it creates a myriad of opportunities for the enhancement of the St Peter and the Port,’ he said.
Deputy Inder concluded: ‘I’m normally politically aligned with members of STSB, but not today. This is not a day for dilly-dallying and kicking the decision we need to make into the hands of consultants and a future Assembly, this is a day for decision.’
Currently, reclamation north of Belle Greve Bay is the States’ preferred option for dumping inert waste.
The amendment asks the States to spend a total of £1.45m. on investigating options for St Peter Port and St Sampson’s harbours.
